ANOKA, Minn. -- Rulemaking isn't easy, especially when your talking about the Mississippi River Critical Corridor Area. The Minnesota DNR was directed by the 2013 Minnesota State Legislature to rewrite the rules, which are meant to guide development of the river corridor.

The rulemaking process has been difficult for the DNR, which has created a complex set of draft rules, meant to guide development along a 72 mile stretch of the Mississippi River Critical Corridor Area, which cuts through the Twin Cities. Their meeting Wednesday night in Anoka was well attended. About 200 people turned out for the second phase of a three step process, to rewrite the rules for MRCCA.

The DNR has set up different standards, which depends on the designated district where a property sits along the river. Coon Rapids is designated as Urban Developed, which applies mostly to homeowners with river lots. The DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr spoke about the rulemaking process, and assured the people at the meeting, that their comments would be taken into consideration. Homeowners with river lots, like Jeff Weaver of Anoka, lined up to share their concerns over the draft rules.

"Retaining walls, this is important," said Weaver. "Retaining walls, ripwrap or other erosion control methods must only be used for the correction of established erosion problems so if your trees are there today you can't do anything, but if they fall in then they'll think about it."

Champlin resident Don Vry owns several properties along the Mississippi River. Vry is an engineer, who showed up at the meeting to share his thoughts about including some different language about nonconforming property.

"How about a section that says the guys that have already armour-plated their banks, you're not going to make them take the stuff out," said Vry. "I don't see any guarantees that the people that have spent $75,000 or $100,000 dollars protecting their river banks, are protected."

The next public meeting with the DNR to discuss the draft rules moves to St. Paul on July 22nd. If you can't make that, you can also e-mail comments to the DNR at their website: mrcca.rulemaking@stae.mn.us

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